1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to audio systems for TV presentations. More particularly, the invention relates to audio systems providing a virtual audio arena effect for live TV presentations.
2. Description of Prior Art
Today attendance at sporting, social and cultural events held in arenas, auditoriums and concert halls can be expensive and present travel difficulties, provided tickets are available for the event. Many events are covered by live TV broadcasts, which fail to give the viewer, the impression of being virtually present at the event. Enhancing the audio accompanying the TV presentation could contribute to providing a viewer with the impression of being virtually present at an event. Moreover, the impression could be further enhanced if the viewer could remotely control the origination of the audio in the arena to provide the viewer with the sensation of sitting in his/her favorite seat and, if desired, repositioning his/her seat for a better location in the arena, auditorium or concert hall.
Prior art related, virtual sound systems accompanying TV broadcast include:
(A) international Publication WO 01/52526 A2, entitled, “System and Method for Real Time Video Production and Multi-Casting”, published Jul. 19, 2001, “discloses a method for broadcasting a show in a video production environment having a processing server in communication with one or more clients. The processor server receives requests from clients for one or more show segments. The server assembles the show segments to produce a single video clip and sends the video clip as a whole unit to the requested client. The video clip is buffered at the requesting client, whereby the buffering permits the requested client to continue to display the video clip.
(B) International Publication No. WO99/21164, published Apr. 29, 1999, entitled, “A Method in a System for Processing a Virtual Acoustic Environment”, discloses a system intended to transfer a virtual environment as a datastream into a receiver and/or reproducing device. The datastream is stored in a memory in which there is stored a type or types of filters, a transfer function used by the system and creating a virtual environment. The receiver receives in the datastream parameters, which are used for modeling the surfaces within the virtual environment. With the aid of these data and stored filter types and transfer functions, the receiver creates a filter bank, which corresponds to the acoustic characteristics of the environment to be created. During operation, receiver receives the datastream, which is supplied to the filter bank created by the receiver and as a result a process sound lets the user listening to the sound receive an impression of the desired virtual environment.
(C) International Publication WO99/57900, published Nov. 11, 1999, entitled, “Video Phone with Enhanced User-Defined Imaging System”, discloses a video phone, which allows a presentation of a scene composed of a user plus environment plus composed of a scene (composed of user plus environment) to be perceived by a viewer. An imaging system perceived the user scene extracts essential information describing the user's sensory appearance along with that of the environment. A distribution system transmits this information from the user's locale to the viewer's locale. A presentation system uses the essential information and the formatting information to construct a presentation of the scene's appearance for the viewer to perceive. A library of presentation/construction formatting may be employed to contribute information that is used along with abstracted essential information to create the presentation for the viewer.
(D) U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,576, issued Feb. 27, 1996, entitled, “Panoramic Image-Based Virtual Realty/Telepresence Audio-Visual System and Method”, discloses a display system for virtual interaction with recorded images. A plurality of positionable sensor means of mutually angular relation, enables substantially continuous coverage of a three-dimensional subject. The sensor recorder communicates with the sensor and is operative to store and generate sensor signals representing the subject. A signal processing means communicates with a sensor and recorder. The processor receives the sensor signals from the recorder and is operable to textual map virtual images represented by the signal's sensor signals on to a three-dimensional form. A panoramic audio-visual display assembly communicates with the signal processor and enables display to the viewer of a texture map virtual image. The viewer has control means communicating with a single processor and enabling interactive manipulation of the texture map virtual images by the viewer by operating the interactive input device. A host computer manipulates a computer generated world model by assigning actions to subjects in the computer generated world model based upon actions by another subject in the computer generated world model.
None of the prior art discloses a viewer controlled audio system for enhancing a “live” TV broadcast of an event at an arena, auditorium or concert hall, the system providing the viewer with an audio effect of being virtually present at the event in a seat of his or her choice, which may be changed to another location, according to the desires of the viewer.